The Cabin featured in Country Roads Magazine

Tags

Al Robert, Ascension Parish, Cajun food, Country Roads Magazine, Crawfish Stew, Creole food, Farming, Gone with the Wind, Gonzales, Little House on the Prairie, Louisiana, Monroe Plantation, New Orleans, Old Crow Distillery, Preservation, River Road, Shrimp Creole, Sinker Cypress, Sisters of the Sacred Heart, Slave Cabin, The Cabin Restaurant, Welham Plantation

Taken by Randy Crawford of Crawford Photography

Country Roads Magazine has just published their July issue, which focuses on cuisine from Natchez to New Orleans. The Cabin Restaurant in Burnside was featured in the issue. Below is the article on The Cabin; a nice piece of positive press!

From Gone with the Wind to Little House on the Prairie, books and movies often afford us the chance to travel back in time, experiencing the culture of centuries past from the comfort of an armchair. In that vein, The Cabin—located on Highway 44 in Gonzales—gives guests the chance to dine within the walls of Louisiana’s history. The 180-year-old building is one of ten original slave dwellings from Monroe Plantation. Along with the original architecture, the restaurant includes a 140-year-old extension and flooring from Welham Plantation in Convent as well as restroom partitions from Old Crow Distillery in New Orleans. Not only does the building seek to preserve its own history but also to pay homage to other structures in the region. The main dining room opens into a courtyard surrounded by two additional cabins and a restored schoolhouse, originally built by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in 1865.

Inside the restaurant, collected antique artifacts dating back two centuries are displayed, offering insight into local farming traditions. “You get to see what life was like in the middle of sugarcane plantation country and how it changed,” said manager Justin Newhart. Despite these quaint distractions, food is no afterthought at The Cabin.

Owner Al Robert was selling poboys out of a gas station in 1973 when the popularity of this sandwich inspired him to expand. Now in a historic location, Robert’s menu specializes in traditional River Road cuisine—fried seafood, jambalaya, and gumbo—to name just a few.

Lunchtime sees The Cabin packed with regulars. “The Roberts know everybody in Ascension Parish, and everybody knows them,” said Newhart. Every Monday, the kitchen serves fresh sausage and white beans over rice,a favorite of the owner. Other specials include fried chicken and garlic mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans, shrimp creole over rice with spinach, and crawfish stew with corn.

Don’t forget to pet Rock the alligator on your way out! He shouldn’t bite—he’s sculpted from a centuries-old cypress log fished out of the water in 1988.

With a meal at The Cabin, you’re not just getting a full stomach, but a chance to step back into history and experience a glimpse of South Louisiana as it was in years gone by.

Wait! Don’t Forget About Vernacular Architecture!

Tags

Antebellum, Architecture, Gone with the Wind, Historic Preservation, Louisiana, Plantations, South, The Cabin Restaurant

When most people think of the South’s iconic historic buildings, they often picture antebellum plantation homes. There are a few reasons for this: they are large and grand; they are usually the only buildings preserved from the past in a particular geographic area; and the plantations emit a certain “Gone with the Wind” vibe – a romanticized version of the Old South that makes people swoon for days gone by.

One of two slave cabins from Helvetia Plantation (circa 1850), saved and restored by Al Robert

It is important to preserve these iconic buildings, but we must not forget a type of architecture that was much more widespread in not only the South, but all corners of the United States: the vernacular architecture of the common folk. Vernacular architecture is a category of architecture based on localized needs and construction materials, and reflecting local traditions. It tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural, technological, and historical context in which it exists. Preservationists should know something about vernacular architecture because the majority of buildings with which they concern themselves are vernacular types.

Homes were built of local material, usually wood (cypress in Louisiana) cleared from the property owner’s land, and used to construct simple dwellings that were built functionality instead of style. In Louisiana, these buildings took the shape of Creole cottages, slave cabins, and shotgun houses. The greatest collection of these buildings lies in New Orleans today. However, there is still a sizable, although rapidly deteriorating, stockpile of vernacular buildings in the parishes that make up south Louisiana, especially in the River Parishes.

So why should we save these smaller, seemingly less important structures?Because they tell the story of a large swath of our cultural heritage. The families who built grand antebellum plantations represented the top 1% of society prior to 1860, which means that most of the United States’ 31.5 million citizens lived in less than idyllic conditions, in homes built for functionality. Our vernacular buildings are important precisely because they are ours – past familial generations invariably inhabited some kind of basic structure built in the local architectural style, rather than a stately mansion. Unfortunately, the commoners left little of themselves to be remembered, especially in writing. That is why it is important to preserve the buildings they lived in, because they may be the only lasting vestige of a people and a history long since vanished.

We don’t just preserve buildings because of their architectural style, building materials, or date of construction. We preserve them because of the people who have inhabited them, because of the people who constructed them, and because they provided one of the most basic human needs: shelter. Vernacular buildings sheltered most of the South for the first 250 years of its existence after colonization. Let’s give them their due and make sure we save them while we still can.